Kruger Prefers Building Uf's Program Quietly

THE SPORTS COLUMN

December 17, 1992|By Larry Guest of The Sentinel Staff

Quickie quiz: Lon Kruger is (a) a move made famous by a West German wrestler, (b) an old Hollywood star known for playing ghoulish monsters, (c) an automatic pistol used by members of the Gestapo, or (d) the Florida Gators' basketball coach.

If you correctly said (d), chances are you have a backboard nailed above your garage door, can spell Krzyzewski with your eyes closed and know how Digger Phelps got his name. Those with only a casual interest in basketball couldn't pick Lon Kruger out of a police lineup of camel thieves.

That's because in Kruger, UF has a post-grad Eagle Scout who has largely concealed his identity behind a pleasing mixture of selflessness and modesty. Most anyone else in his third season as the Gators' basketball coach with one SEC coach-of-the-year honor already tucked away would be fending off autograph hounds and meddling alumni at restaurants in Jacksonville or Tampa. But Kruger confesses he dines in peace in most any eatery outside Gainesville.

He'll be dining in Orlando this weekend - no doubt continuing his life-long search for the perfect ribs - when his unbeaten Gators (3-0) come to the O-rena to participate in something called The Milk Challenge, the latest version of the Florida Citrus Bowl's holiday college tournament.

By all rights, Lon Kruger should be a celebrity, a household name, after leading his UF overachievers into the NIT semifinals last season. Perhaps one day soon he will be. But for now, he prefers to quietly rebuild the program, freely forfeiting attention to his own players and to King Football. Lon is the spic-and-span guy former tyrant/AD Bill Arnsparger brought in after Arnsie had destroyed Gator basketball with a grandstand play for the NCAA Infractions Committee. At least Arnsie did something right.

Foolishly running controversial former coach Norm Sloan off the gang plank days before the 1989-90 season failed to gain leniency from the Infractions Committee and did even less for the continuity of Gators basketball. The next year, after interim mistake Don DeVoe, Kruger arrived from Kansas State to take over a program far more damaged than he had imagined.

''I came in realizing there had been a setback,'' Kruger says in retrospect, ''but probably not to the degree it really was. People's confidence had been shaken. Players didn't know what to believe or who to trust. After we were here a few months, we would have been glad to know we would be in the NIT at the end of two years. There were some low points but not anything that lasted very long. The players responded and jumped that schedule ahead last year.''

That step taken, Kruger openly admits the goal this season is an NCAA postseason bid, that college hoops Holy Grail the Gators had earned in each of Sloan's last three seasons. A return to that level would silence remaining doubters who whisper that Kruger's style is more apt to produce overachievers and moral victories than a dominant program.

What he is producing, without question, is admiration from all who watch him work. Look in the dictionary for ''care,'' they intimate, and you'll find a picture of Kruger. They gush about his habit of sitting in the operating room with players during knee surgery. Or the time he and his staff give to community programs. Or the blizzard of hand-written notes he sends thanking cheerleaders or congratulating UF athletes in other sports. Or the genuine emphasis he places on his players' academic pursuits.

AD Jeremy Foley clings to an insightful meeting with Kruger after the Gators beat Pitt and Purdue on the road last March to earn a berth in the NIT final four in New York.

''Once we got back to Gainesville, I went to Lon's office to work out the details of the trip to New York,'' Foley recalls. ''He glanced at his watch and said it was time for a meeting with his players. He invited me to sit in and promised we'd get back to the travel matters afterward. I went in with him, expecting the conversation to focus on Virginia, our next NIT opponent. Lon spent 45 minutes talking about the classwork the players missed because of the Pitt and Purdue games. He told them he wanted each of them to go meet with their profs to catch up. Basketball or Virginia didn't come up one time. That stuck in my mind as saying a lot about what kind of person Lon is.''

By the way, in case you failed the test at the top, former Notre Dame hoops coach ''Digger'' Phelps acquired the nickname working for his father digging graves. Which is what Kruger is trying to dig UF basketball out of.